Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Being a Big Girl

That's how Peter Parker's text ends. Before it is a long string of directions that, despite having lived here for 3 years now, I have to admit I am woefully unfamiliar with.

What is this directions to?

My place.

Back story...

Even though I am enjoying single life and all it has to offer, not all of my friends seem to be frolicking in the Jack Daniels fun with me. In fact, many of them are being institutionalized.

No, no, they are not making the mistake of going to Hampton. They're getting married, that is.

To date, I have attended three weddings, been invited to seven and have two more on the calendar before the year is out. By 2010 I should have pretty nicely performing stock in Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Generally, I take a wedding for what it is; the opportunity to get drink, eat and be merry on someone else's dime, and still have the choice to retire to my own bed to sprawl out as I please or choose to invite one of the groomsmen home to spoon me.

I take my choices very seriously.

But every once in awhile, a very rare occasion occurs. A wedding I am actually excited for.

You know, one where the couple might actually not get divorced?

It's as elusive as the goddamn yeti. So when it comes, I am all in.
This particular wedding was one of those such occurrences.

As is customary, I bought presents, a new dress and 4 inch heels and invited my Favorite Gay Boy to do my makeup, be my arm candy, and talk about people with me at the reception. All was in place.

Until of course the Sunday before the Friday wedding. FGB texts me of a job he is flying out of town for...
On the Friday morning of the wedding.

Sonofabitch.

So here I am, all new dressed and no date to go.

There is a reason I ask FGB to accompany me to these things. Because when you ask a guy you are even remotely involved with, even if the involvement is only in his mind, he spends the whole damn wedding tense and paranoid waiting on you to turn to him with googly eyes and start mentally planning your own wedding to HIM.

To put it frankly, I'm not that chick.
And that particular brand of bitchass don't go with my new 4 inch heels dress.

After much deliberation, and consultation with both my female and male friends, I decide to ask a friend of mine. Immediately he gets his Savion Glover on.

"Can I let you know by Tuesday?"

If this were a sitcom, this is about the moment where I would side eye the camera.

Since this is not my first rodeo, I know better than to wait around. Rather than trying to find another last minute date for myself, I decide to go alone. I won't break. (I don't think, though I must cop to being a going-at-it-alone virgin.) At least then when I am swapping drunk stories with my friends at the table at the reception, I don't have anyone I have to turn to and explain the back story.

On Tuesday, the inevitable sheepish text comes...

How important is it that I go on Friday?

To keep it 100 it's not important at all that YOU go.

It's just I don't do weddings...

It's fine. Really. We're good.

And unlike most women, I am not being passive aggressive. I actually mean it.

But then, for some reason come Friday evening, when I am running around like Madoff at a stockholders' meeting trying to make it clear across town in rush hour traffic in time for the sunset wedding that SEEMED like a romantic idea before factoring in Houston traffic and bugs, I get another text.

I am really dragging ass getting ready. But I don't wanna let you down. Do you mind if I don't go?

I am at first equal parts grateful and turned on. Grateful because I won't have to be the 7th wheel to all my friends' coupledoms. Turned on because I do so love when a man takes charge and tells me what to do.

I kinda go hard for that shit.

I tell him I will pick him up as soon as I find my damn shoes.

On the drive I start thinking. Which is never good. But necessary nonetheless.

Do I really wanna be that girl? You know, girl who can't go places by herself? I'm running late anyway. Do I really wanna go outta my way to pick him up? Am I really that desperate to have a date that I would actually miss my friend walking down the aisle just so I would have someone to giggle in the buffet line with?

I. Just. Can't.

I'm not coming.

You don't want me to come?

It's not that I don't want you to come. It's just that I don't need you to come.

Is it because you are afraid I will show up in an all plaid suit and docksiders?

LMAO! I am nothing but confident in your ability to dress like you have both sense and the desire to get laid.

Well I would like to think so. What is it then?

Sometimes a girl just has to man up and go places by herself.

And so I do. I would be lying if I said there wasn't a moment when all the couples took pictures at our table at dinner and I was literally singled out when I wished I wasn't there alone. But the fact of the matter is, until I decide otherwise, I am not a plus one. I am just a one.
And if I am going to be as grown as I am always saying I am, then I have to be ok with that.

So I smile for the camera. I take the photographer’s compliments and his card when he tells me I should consider posing for portfolios. I take the hands of my girls and dance under the tiny stringed lights to a song we requested just for the bride. I take my tired ass home when dancing on stone floors in heels gets to be just a bit too much on my rapidly getting older knees. I take the long way back to the house, and stop by Peter's. I take the drink he gives me on his balcony, my face tilted to the stars. I even take his amusement and mix it with my own peace when he asks me what I am thinking about.

La, Limned

Georgia born and Howard bred. Equal parts Mary and Jezebel. Fluent in Shakespeare and T.I. Best friend of Mark, Jack, and the good Captain, Morgan. Writer who has written no books. Believer in karma and karma sutra.